


Lips on the Sky

by CruelisnotMason



Series: Space Explorers Verse [2]
Category: Voltron - Fandom, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Break Up, Hurt, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Only between jeith tho, Smut, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 05:08:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17258126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CruelisnotMason/pseuds/CruelisnotMason
Summary: “Does the captain know you’re in love with him?”





	Lips on the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty proud of this One-Shot I originally wrote as a chapter of my Space Explorers multific. I liked it well enough to post it as a stand alone, too. If you read Space Explorers , there is nothing new for you to read here, though.
> 
> Just a heads up, the explicit part is related to Jeith, not Sheith.
> 
> Read the multi-chap fic [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16785664/chapters/39393529)! 
> 
>  

 

> “Does the captain know, you’re in love with him?”

It’s been a long day - the cafeteria is empty. The other Garrison Pilots from the meeting  collectively went out to get food, but Keith stayed. He looks up into the face of the person that had approached him. It’s been a long week already. And it just got much, much longer.

“I thought we were done with teenage bullying?”, he only says and stuffs his mouth with whatever piles in front of him on his plate - he’s not a picky eater and just takes what the Garrison cafeteria presents him. He ignores James for a while, but he’s still standing there, arms folded, and irritating grin on his face.

“I thought we were done with pining over Shiro”, Griffin counters smoothly and pulls a chair back. He’s sitting down opposite Keith, who accepted that the end of this day will only slowly come. Keith doesn’t even try to deny James’ words. Why the effort, when it’s apparently obvious? He doesn’t spare him a second glance while eating, but it’s not enough for James to simply stop.

“If you’d ask me, it’s always painful to watch, nowadays”, he sighs and puts his bowl of noodles down in front of him, “and back then it was, too.”

That’s enough to get his blood riling - Keith wants to tell him a big  _fuck you_ , but then he reminds himself, that he has  _grown_.

Although, apparently not enough yet to just let it slide. “Go fuck yourself, Griffin”, he says in the end against any moral obligation, because stress shortens his temper.

Griffin says nothing and grins. He isn’t a mean guy per se – hasn’t been lately, at least. He  _was_  a dick when he was a kid but grown up James wasn’t. Against all odds, talking to James usually turned out alright. Keith should  _try_  being nicer to him, too. But not right now, when he’s pushing boundaries. Keith’s about to get up, but James pulls him down.

“Sorry! Sorry, for teasing you. I’m just getting really curious”, he explains. Keith doesn’t answer – he doesn’t tell him that it’s not his place to be curious, but he just stares at him, not able to come up with a witty comeback.

James clears his throat, with Keith’s intense gaze on him, he’s a tad unsure. Keith’s gaze softens at that, he thinks that maybe it’s not James intention to crash and burn in talking with him, maybe he’s also not always good at social cues, just like Keith wasn’t as a kid (or still isn’t).

The brown haired MFE-Fighter gains a bit more certainty, because he pushes further. “Everyone can see how you carry your heart on your sleeve, so…why doesn’t he?” Their gaze meet, then James’ head drops – he starts eating his food, too. The situation is more than awkward and Keith doesn’t understand – for the love of god – why they were sitting in the cafeteria, James rather talking at than with him, with Keith too dull, too tired and worn out from working and everything else is this week, to listen to James complaints about him and Shiro.

If he’s honest to himself, Keith doesn’t know either – for the biggest part of their relationship, he was always sure that Shiro knew what he meant to him. If even James could see it, why couldn’t he? But, Keith thinks, he won’t push. He isn’t even sure that Shiro loves him back – although in the past, more often than not, it had felt that way.

Nothing had happened between them yet, although Keith has never been afraid to raise the stakes - Shiro is his most precious thing in this whole universe and having him is like _having it all._ Keith wants to give him all the time he needs for them to evolve into something different slowly, he treasures him that much, that he never wants to push. Keith never does – he also never asks. He never tries to overstep a line, especially lately, when things haven’t been quite…right.

“I don’t know”, he finally says, again. But maybe he does.

James’ lips curl downwards. “Right, okay.” He leaves it be, for now, then starts to eat, pushing big chunks of food in his mouth - his hair falls into his face while he eats, and he won’t push it back. It annoys Keith too much, but he doesn’t know why.

“Why the...-” Nobody’s in the cafeteria besides them, so what’s the harm with cursing a little? “Why the  _fuck_ are you asking me anyways? Like it’s any of your concern.” It really isn’t and there’s no logic explanation to why James would be interested in him and Shiro.

James looks up to him, eyes wide, mouth gawping. Keith’s heated words don’t make him angry anymore – he merely looks surprised. “I am”, he draws it out, “just a curious person.”

Then he grins wide, “you make me curious.”

 

Keith’s deadpan tells clearly enough, that he doesn’t believe him.

“Also”, James adds after one look in Keith’s face - he’s treading to say his next words, “The day we set foot on Earth for the first time after the war had been the last time I saw you looking truly happy.”

That’s blunt. Keith’s mouth falls open.

It’s true. War is over, but…he feels restless. They have all the safety and time they want, but…he feels like they aren’t progressing. He doesn’t want to destroy what they have, doesn’t want to scare Shiro off, doesn’t want to ruin it for one moment, so he’s sitting on the edge – just too afraid to move. And it shows, apparently, that he’s getting impatient, although he swore himself to be there for him forever, although he thought being just like this was  _always_ enough-

 

“Does everyone ...-”

“No _, no_ ”, James reassures him, “I think it’s just me.”

Keith looks down to the overcooked porridge on his plate and the grey vegetables, then he looks at his hands. They aren’t shaking, but he almost expects them to be. He feels James look of concern burning underneath his skin and although he mostly doesn’t care what others think, he feels like he’s an embarrassing loser.

“Like, your crush is obvious”, James explains quickly, with a desperate attempt to calm him down, “but the rest of the Garrison thinks it’ll work out between you two at some point.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keith likes how James fucks him on the small bed at the shack - they mostly meet there, because Keith is reluctant to just walk into the Garrison after he quit his job without giving any sort of explanation - and it’s been getting really, really good.

He doesn’t know how James does it and doesn’t understand how he can like it so much, but when he looks at this attractive face grimacing over an arriving orgasm, he thinks it’s the best thing in the world to look at.

“Fuck”, Keith groans and moves against him. It’s not easy when James holds one of his legs up, but there’s enough friction already, so it’s okay.

“Keith”, he moans, and his face is getting really red, “Keith, I’m almost...-”, he groans again. Keith is reaching for his own dick, stroking himself hard, so they can come together.

 

They lie together afterwards, in a tight hug, because there’s barely enough space for one person on the bed. Keith wonders how his mother could ever fit with his dad back then.

James has an arm around him, boasting smile on his face, like Keith’s his prize to be won. He often looks like that, especially in the afterglow.

Keith has a small grin on his face, too, struggling free from their joined limbs. When he’s able to look down on James’ face, he starts caressing his face, thumbs over his eyebrows, then over his nose. James looks up to him, grinning wider. Keith has to look away, because he knows what this look means – he looks out of the window instead.

“I have fantasies of fucking you raw and without lube”, James says out of the blue as he caresses Keith’s chest.

Keith turns his head to look back at him with a deep furrow in his eyebrows. “You’re a fucking idiot” he says, pushes against James’ shoulder and rolls to the side, away from him. James hugs him from behind.

“Obviously we’re never going to do that”, he explains quickly, “but just …the thought really turns me on. I simply wanted to share.”

“If you think that’ll interest me into doing another round, you really  _are_  delusional”, he says and turns his head to face James’ way to attractive face. He’s not disappointed because of Keith’s reaction, just laughing lightly.

Keith wishes he could wipe the big grin off his face, but when James leans down to kiss him, every thought he had before ceases to exist. James kisses him,  _him_ …  _Keith_ , small and hurt Keith, who’s already sleepy and dazed and full of confusing and violent feelings that storm in his heart, who is thinking of James’ big dreamy grin and his muscular but lean build, idiot-Keith, who is suddenly thinking that he hasn’t seen Shiro in a while,  _hurt_  Keith, who doesn’t want to hurt anyone else.

 

It’s a cruel thought, when he’s lying here with James, but it’s nothing he can stop. James does know, after all, about his feelings for Shiro.

“Your weird fantasies are not going to happen”, he says again to James, but he grins now too, because James’ smile is to wide and to honest to not give it right back to him.

His head feels heavy, suddenly. He touches James’ face, strokes over his cheek and smiles at him, then he lets his arm sink down again. James touches his scar, rubs with his thumb over it softly – he looks into Keith’s eyes quickly enough to catch Keith’s guarded look, but doesn’t comment on it.

Instead, James only laughs and kisses him for what feels like hours - until Keith is feeling big and visible again, feels like he’s there, back on earth, again, safe and warm and heavy,  until he’s dozing off, flying towards the moon, dreaming about floating in the cold harsh galaxy and reaching for glittering bright yellow stars.

 

It all started innocently enough, and now they’re here.

It started with James asking him out three times a week (“just to hang out, not a date!”) – grinning widely and asking him in the worst situations possible – until Keith, instead of just not answering, decided to give it a go.

“You get one chance”, he says, and doesn’t know why he’s agreeing to it. He can’t let go of his feelings. Not now. Not ever, possibly.

The date is fine – but Keith thinks it’s the end of it. James is nice, he’s good looking, and he likes him (he thinks). Keith wonders since when James had developed feelings for him, but he doesn’t ask. James didn’t tell him (yet).

 

 

The first kiss doesn’t happen until they’ve been meeting for weeks, and when they kiss, Keith tries to desperately erase all the images he created of Shiro kissing  _him_ from his mind. It doesn’t work.

He’s not crying, but it’s a close one.

James asks him if he doesn’t want this – but somehow Keith does. He’s aching for love and for someone to love him back – he always thought he wasn’t a big hugger, but oh, does he crave human touch. James holding his hand reminds him of every little one of Shiro’s careful touches – because it’s just as gentle and feels just as real.

 

“I don’t know if we should stop this”, Keith tells James once when they are sitting on the roof, watching the stars. James doesn’t answer, just puts an arm around his shoulders. He smells good. The air smells amazing, fresh and like summer, and a small warm breeze hits Keith’s face. All in all, he should feel good, but then he looks up to the stars and icy universe, and he remembers all the moments he had with Shiro that felt like it was a big love romance out of a fucking movie, all the moments where stars where glittering over their heads and he could have just kissed him and hoped for the best.

But Shiro is closing off lately and he’s losing him. They still see each other regularly, but he somehow can’t recognize him anymore.

“I know that I don’t want this to stop”, James tells him softly, takes his hand in his. He leans in to kiss him, but Keith pulls back.

“Sorry.”

But James shakes his head – he isn’t offended.

They are sitting a while in silence, breathing and feeling. Keith feels too much, it seems.

“I’m afraid”, he finally says and then laughs ironically, “I fought the whole universe and fought myself, fought  _him_  – but I’m still afraid, and it’s because of him. I’m afraid I’m losing him, and I’m also afraid that…in the end I’ll never …had him.”

It’s more truth than necessary – but maybe it’s the exact right amount of truth.

 

James exhales deeply next to him.

“He’s not worth sacrificing your happiness for him, Keith. Nobody is.”

It’s not that he doesn’t know, but it never felt like a sacrifice to him – it only feels that way now, when Shiro’s brooding, when he’s not being honest with him. He can’t blame him, he went through hell. They’ve both been through war and worse – the fight, Haggar…Shiro thought she had killed him.

“You have him”, James says, and his eyes are red and intense – it must be hurtful for him, too.

“What do you mean?”

“The way he looks at you, the way he treats you. You have him – I know that much. But I think there’s something holding him back and it slowly feels like he’ll never be ready to face it.”

Keith thinks about it – and he just doesn’t know what to think about it.

“So, what am I going to do?”, he asks himself.

“I don’t know”, James shrugs. “But Keith”, he says and takes his hand, “I’m here, here with you. I’m not trying to make life painful for myself with letting you into it, and I have to know if there’s a chance, that this…relationship will go somewhere. I’m okay if you don’t think this it will – I can do that, for a while.”

He takes his hand. “But I’ve got feelings, too. And I like you.”

Keith looks at him, James, bashful James, idiot-Griffin, and he realizes how much they both changed…they matured. It feels safe, it feels good to be with him, but a small voice in his mind reminds him that he tried giving up his feelings for Shiro before, and in the end, he can never walk away from him.

 

 

 

They are lying in the bed in the shack again. Keith leans against James’ chest, eyes closed. He listens to the steady heartbeat, likes his smell, likes his warmth, he’s lying there, satisfied and happy.

There must be a solution, for all of this, he thinks.

“I like you”, James says, but it’s not out of the blue. For the second time now, since they are together (officially, at least for them), he had told him. Keith crawls up to him, takes his face into his hand, kisses him, long and slowly. “Thanks”, he says, “I like you, too.”

 

When they are lying on the bed like that, exhausted and satisfied, Keith thinks that the world is alright again. It becomes easier to not think of Shiro – and he knows why.

“James”, he says, voice tight.

“Hm?”

“I’m going to quit my job at the Garrison.” He lets it sink in for him. He first says nothing, then he sits up.

“What?!” James says in disbelief. Keith is doing great there, he’s hard working and efficient – unbelievable to everyone that knew him as the ‘discipline case’ he was, a decade ago.

“It feels right, to do so”, Keith’s voice is emotionless. It’s a cut – deep and clean. It’s easier to not care and not love someone, if you see them less often.

James understands, even without explanation. “You’re sure”, he simply states and leans back into the mattress and looks at the ceiling.

“Yeah. I made my decision.”

Keith gets pushed back into the sheets, James is hovering over him, grin bashful and happy, he doesn’t even try to contain his smile. Keith feels something drop in his stomach but smiles back.

James leans down, brushes some hair out of Keith’s face, then kisses him. He knows, that he’s pouring all his feelings in the press of his lips and hopes it’s the right decision. It must be. It  _needs_  to be, even if James doesn’t expect anything.

 

 

The end comes the day Shiro knocks rapidly at his door.

It’s Shiro,  _his_  Shiro. Eyes full of sparkle and life, heart full of energy. Keith’s mesmerized within seconds, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. The urge to just grab Shiro’s head, shove him against the wall and kiss him is strong, stronger than  _he_  is, therefore he’s lucky that Shiro excuses himself quickly enough and heads back to the Garrison before something happens.

Keith has never been one for rational decisions. If he had thought one or two seconds about it, he would have known that it wasn’t the best idea to get on a ship, after he quit his job, after he started things with James, just for him and Shiro to leave planet Earth and travel space.

The thing is – this idea isn’t new. It’s something they talked about when they were younger, when he was still a cadet and Shiro was Iverson’s right hand. It was something they talked about, that they wanted in the future, even after Shiro would get married to a husband that didn’t want him in space, even knowing that surviving the next few years wasn’t a given for Shiro back then. For Keith, there was no way it wouldn’t happen, and when he looked back, yes, it was always written in the stars, long before they were born.

Keith’s not rational, but he’s trying to do things right.

He gives Shiro a head start to avoid any possible confrontation with him. He’s not up to answering what he’s doing at the Galaxy Garrison at night but following him back and slipping past security right after him is the easiest way to get inside at this hour.

The halls are dark and quiet, and he can easily walk through the corridors without being seen. It only takes a few minutes to get to the dorms - instead of knocking at Shiro’s door what he has been used to time and time again, he’s knocking at James’. It only takes a minute or two for him to answer it and when he opens the door, a surprised look appears his face.

“Hey, what’s up?”, James asks. Keith’s heart aches. James is happy to see him without question - and it makes his heart drop to his feet.

“Nothing…much”, Keith says, looking as tense as he feels. Every voice in his head screams at him to not do what he’s about to do.

“What’s wrong?”, James instantly knows that there’s something going on, so he pulls Keith into his arms. Keith lets it happen and feels the dread in his stomach again.

 

It takes a while to get it out, but it’s easier to rip a bandage of than to pull it off slowly-

“We have to break up”, he tells him. And that’s it.

 

 

 

It’s worse that he’s back, working at the Garrison now which means he can’t hide away from James. On top of that, he’s trying hard to prevent their paths from crossing, but unsuccessfully. He appreciates James’ efforts to handle the situation without being rude, but he’s hurt, and it shows, too. It’s especially noticeable, when Keith is with Shiro, idly sitting in the cafeteria on a regular basis, it’s a big obvious hit in his face.

Keith knows that all the MFE fighters, who count as James’ friends, hate him from the deep core of their heart since he broke up with him – even the blond neutral looking one wears an expression that gets crinklier every time she’s looking at him. He can feel their looks burning on his skin, and it’s so painfully obvious even Shiro becomes aware of it. He is not saying anything; just offers his help with any issues Keith might have. Keith is not religious, but he thanks God for letting Shiro not immediately read the situation.

James comes over uninvited, the night before they depart. Keith’s not an idiot, he anticipated it. Opening the door and looking at his face let loose hell - all the conflicted feelings he buried inside him since the break-up surface and throw him off. He knows by now, that not a single one of those feelings is of love, but the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes: Given a little more time, his feelings would have been on the best way to turn into something more like it.

“You hurt me, but I still like you”, James comes straight to the point as he enters the room. He sits down the only chair that sits in the middle of the room. “You know that I wish you the best for the mission.” It comes out easier than it presumably is, and Keith can only guess how much it takes for him to be the bigger person right now.

“I know.” Keith says to both, then crosses his arms in front of his chest.

“With Shiro, too”, James adds, voice unsteady.

“Thanks.” He’s answering in one word-sentences, because he doesn’t know what to say or what he will say if he says more. But that cannot be how they part, so he pulls himself together and-

“You know, I’m not doing this because I hope I have a chance with him”, he says.

“No need to explain yourself.”

James’ voice isn’t as cold as he tries for it to be. Keith wishes he’d be colder, just to make it easier for him. But coming here, talking to him, it’s not easy. Whatever James thinks will be accomplished by that, it must be important to him.

Keith loosens his arms and lets them hang at his side. He wants to explain himself – even though he knows that there’s no explanation good enough for this.

“I  _know_.”

“It would be easier to just hate you”, James starts and leans against the wall, “if I had known from the start that your only goal was to be alone in space with him to bone him. Would have been way easier to write you off as a douche bag and just casually fucking around with you.”

Keith snorts. It’s allowed, he thinks. James knows, too, how ridiculous it sounds at least. He could have said no to James from the beginning, but he didn’t. He doesn’t regret it, not for one second. But now they are standing here like that, because Keith cannot say no to Shiro, either. He wished he was able to.

“I know, you’re trying to be fair”, James says. The  _‘although you aren’t’_  hangs in the air unspoken of. His head drops. “And I hope the chance you gave us was real.”  His voice lost all faked casualness, and what’s left of it sounds broken. Keith cannot bear listening to it,  _his_  heart aches,  _too_. He never wanted to hurt him.

James raises his voice again, and what he says next pierces through his heart.

“I was thinking that you never even  _tried_  to get over him from the beginning, and that hurts, retrospectively.”

His head is still hanging between his shoulders, facing downwards. Although Keith wants to comfort him in any possible way, he holds himself back. He doesn’t want to tell promises he can’t keep, doesn’t want to send signals that are mixed.

He thinks he gave him a real chance, went out with him, kissed him, had sex with him, quit the Garrison to get away from Shiro and his feelings to him – but maybe it wasn’t enough. Maybe he changed his mind too quickly, could not let go of his last string of hope, or maybe he wanted to handle the situation like an uptight lawyer – trying to make only promises he can keep, with a backdoor open, to get out of his feelings. Something like that.

“I’m sorry”, he finally says and puts a hand on James shoulder. It’s weak, but it’s all he has. “Sorry for hurting you. I wanted it to work. Sorry. James, I’m so sorry.”

James is not. He looks up at him, eyes tired, like he dragged every thought around in his head already. That last bit he wants to say, is it supposed to hurt?

“Aren’t you done, saving him?”

When Keith doesn’t answer, James walks out on him, out of the door, not sparing him a second glance.

 

And that’s how they part.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you're interested in the whole multi fic, it's here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16785664/chapters/39393529 ! I'll be happy about every new reader!:) 
> 
> Also, I'm CruelisnotMason | Cruelisblue and I do fics and fanart. You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/CruelisB) & [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/cruelisblue) and talk to me about Sheith (or Jeith)❤️  
> ___________________________________
> 
> If you liked this, I'd be overjoyed if you left a comment! I welcome:  
> \- short comments  
> \- long comments  
> \- "<3"  
> \- constructive criticism! (Please take into account if the work is old/recent, and that I'm not a native speaker/ that I'm doing this as a hobby in my free time :)  
> So please voice your criticism politely; but I do absolutely welcome it!)


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